BWW Preview: AITAF - ARTS IN THE ARMED FORCES 2018

Actor and former Marine Adam Driver will give a large monetary prize to the winner of a new playwriting contest open only to veterans and active duty service members.

Driver, who joined the Marines after 9/11 and went on to act in HBO's "Girls" with Lena Dunham and most recently stars in Disney's reboot of "Star Wars," is searching the armed forces for people who want to get into the theater business.

"The military has acronyms for acronyms that can explain everything, but when it comes to explaining an experience, a post-traumatic experience, there's not a lot of opportunities," Driver, founder of Arts in the Armed Forces, told The New York Times.

"There's no reason to think that this community doesn't have anything to say," Driver said. "Maybe they don't have access to another way of saying it."

The winner of the prize will receive $10,000, a staged reading of the winning script in New York City or on base if the winner is on active duty, and an award presentation on Broadway.

The lead judge for the contest is Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, who grew up in a military family and is the author of "Topdog/Underdog," a play about two black brothers who turn to swindling and shoplifting to survive life in a racist world.

Arts in the Armed Forces received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts earlier this year for continued work in bringing theater to veterans, service members and their families.

The Bridge Award winner will be announced May 1, 2018, and will be presented at the annual AITAF Broadway fundraiser in November 2018. The reading from the award winner will subsequently be presented in New York with a professional director and cast.